INTRODUCTION Ve 
that any one who shoots a rare bird in a remote part of the 
country should despatch it to a competent authority for 
identification, if possible on the day on which it has been 
secured, so that its occurrence may be properly substan- 
tiated. 
And, lastly, a word on collecting in general. A naturalist 
who kills for the mere sake of collecting deserves to rank 
lower than one who does not collect at all. And yet one might 
venture to say that there are private museums throughout 
the country, well stocked with carefully-mounted specimens, 
which have been formed for no special purpose whatso- 
ever. This aimless method of collecting is far too common 
a practice. 
The sentiments expressed by the late Professor Elhott 
Coues bear out these remarks: ‘‘ Collecting stands much in 
the same relation to ornithology that the useful and indis- 
pensable office of an apothecary bears to the duties of a 
physician. A field-naturalist is always more or less of a 
collector; the latter is sometimes found to know almost 
nothing of natural history worth knowing. The true 
ornithologist goes out to study birds alive and destroys 
some of them simply because that is the only way of 
learning their structure and technical characters. There 
is much more about a bird that can be discovered in its 
dead body—how much more, then, than can be found out 
from its stuffed skin! In my humble opinion the man 
who only gathers birds, as a miser money, to swell his 
cabinet, and that other man who gloats, as miser-like, over 
the same hoard, both work on a plane far beneath where 
the enlightened naturalist stands. One looks at Nature, 
and never knows that she is beautiful; the other knows 
she is beautiful, as even a corpse may be; the naturalist 
catches her sentient expression, and knows how beautiful 
she is! I would have you to know and love her; for fairer 
mistress never swayed the heart of man. Aim high!— 
press on, and leave the half-way house of mere collector- 
ship far behind in your pursuit of a delightful study, nor 
fancy the closet its goal.” 
